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Only Miuccia Prada has started a show quite as late - 43 minutes - this season, but few here really minded: it gave the crowd more time to compare dreadlocks and sackcloth. When the show did begin it was with a baseline deep enough to perform minor surgery and two kerosine-soaked strips of material that were lit to give the catwalk backdrop a suitably Burning Man vibe.

The clothes - all topped by knit beanies with web-like front panels pulled either right down over the face or two bridge of the nose - came in a variety of earth-toned sludge (sludgy reddish brown, sludgy pale green) with a passing whisper of pale peach (cheery for Owens) all framed by a constant undertow of black. There was a lot of feltily-wefted mohair and the odd patch of white fur.

Taken together, the outfits looked like costume design for a post-apocalyptic concept music video, but there were plenty of lovely, don't-have-to-be-ostentatiously-depressive to wear it bits and pieces hidden under the styling. A sleeveless, oaty-coloured mohair jumper oozed perfectly south of the hip, black-collared overcoats and treated leather jackets were perfect mid-winter dog-walkers, and the Cossack-trousers-cum-skirts looked liberatingly free and easy to wear. The same could not be said of the narrow, cobblestone-grey, long skirt worn that was worn by one model that really didn't get along with whatever long pair of boots lurked beneath it. She stumbled, hoiked, stumbled again, but stayed just about vertical.